Only the Dead

by Ben Sanders

  TWENTY-NINE

  WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 1.32 P.M.

  Devereaux stayed at his desk and processed paperwork. Progress and interview reports for week-old minor enquiries, a watered-down recountal of his visit to Pit with The Don. Bare-bone facts, no allusion to witness intimidation. No insinuation of improper conduct. It knocked an inch off his in-tray, and let him keep a low profile. He didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into Bowen or Thomas Rhys, couldn’t be bothered with the requisite snide exchange should he meet Frank Briar.

  He couldn’t remember feeling so tired. He ascribed it to massive stress: Monday’s shooting, Bowen’s debriefings, his run-in with McCarthy. Maybe bad events conspired to coincide.

  He was working hard to suppress a migraine. Stress had triggered it. Two cigarettes and a walk up and down Vincent Street hadn’t helped. Two pain killers had eventually tamed the pulsing. Much longer, and his eyeballs would have shot blood geysers. Escaping home was out of the question. Absence would contradict the notion he had nothing to hide. There was a big difference between staying low and going AWOL.

  The phone was off the hook to eliminate distractions. He checked his messages at two p.m: two missed calls from John Hale. Devereaux called the office down on High Street and got no answer. He tried his mobile, hung up when the phones in the robbery incident room all rang in unison.

  He rolled closer on his chair, glimpsed a harried Frank Briar grab a desk line. It was a quick conversation: maybe fifteen seconds, all incoming traffic. Briar finger-combed a mussed hairdo and headed out of the room.

  Something urgent. Something big.

  Devereaux caught him at the door.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  Briar ignored him. He brushed past and headed for Bowen’s office. Devereaux stepped into the incident room. Summer office climate: whirring desk fans, flushed faces, sticky shirt backs. No one offered acknowledgement. Briar had shunned him. Even eye contact would constitute collusion with the enemy.

  He picked up Briar’s phone, checked the history. One incoming call, thirty seconds prior: Northcom police dispatch. He redialled and identified himself to the operator, asked for a repeat of the message that had just come through.

  ‘Sergeant, we’ve had a one-one-one report of a possible firearms offence; we were told to notify this number of any activity on that location.’

  Devereaux said, ‘What’s the address?’

  The operator told him. It meant nothing. But it had to be robbery-related, otherwise why dial this line?

  Devereaux said, ‘What was the call?’

  ‘I can play it back to you.’

  ‘No, just give me the gist of it.’

  ‘Neighbour reports what she thought was a single shotgun blast from indoors.’

  ‘Okay. When did this come in?’

  ‘Seventeen minutes ago now.’

  He heard his own phone ringing.

  ‘I’ll let you go; I’ve got another call coming.’

  He ran back to his desk and answered. John Hale said, ‘I tried to reach you earlier. Twice.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I got walked in on during a house search.’

  ‘We just got a report of shots fired at a place down in Otara.’

  ‘That was me. It was the Haines house.’

  Haines. Devereaux drew a momentary blank and then clicked on the name: the fight club robbery, January third. Haines was the caravan man, taking cash.

  Maybe bad events conspired to coincide.

  ‘Shit. What were you doing in there?’

  ‘I got a tip-off he was using a fake name. I checked out his house, and he walked in on me with a shotgun.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘He got off one round.’

  Devereaux sat down. His shirt neck breathed a stale odour. ‘Yes. But are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve got some minor pellet damage.’

  ‘Are you bleeding?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Did you leave any in the house?’

  ‘Probably in the bath.’

  ‘Christ. What were you doing in there?’

  ‘Hiding.’ He paused. ‘At the least I can go down for unlawful entry. If they read it wrong, they could implicate me as part of the robbery team.’

  ‘Are you badly hurt?’

  ‘I think it’s minor.’

  ‘You think.’

  No answer. Devereaux checked his watch. Almost five minutes since the initial call. He didn’t want to give Briar too big a head start. ‘What did you touch?’ he said.

  ‘No prints; I had gloves. It’s the blood I’m worried about.’

  ‘How much is there?’

  ‘I don’t know. My shirt caught most of it.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He knew I was in the house. He came home with a shotgun and searched the place. We scuffled, he got off one round.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘In the car, on the way home.’

  ‘And where is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I know he left the house. He tried to follow me, but I lost him.’

  ‘Can he identify you?’

  ‘Probably not. I don’t think he got a good look at me. But a witness I spoke to will confirm I was asking for his address about thirty minutes before everything happened.’

  Devereaux cupped the back of his neck. His palm came away damp. ‘Ah, shit.’

  ‘Yeah. But things will be a hell of a lot easier to ride out if there’s no evidence putting me inside the actual house.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. His temples throbbed: the pain-killers hadn’t yet trounced the migraine. This cannot be happening. He said, ‘Okay. They’ve got people moving on this now; I’ve got to head down there and cool this out. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll drop by later. For God’s sake keep your head down.’

  Hale hung up. Devereaux swung his suit coat off his chair back and shrugged inside it. He passed Bowen’s office on the way to the stairs. No Bowen or Briar. Maybe they were both heading out. He reached the exit and swore and ran back to his desk. Migraine throb matched him step for step. He dialled Northcom. The same operator answered.

  ‘Who’ve you got responding to the Haines callout?’

  An agonising stretch of keyboard patter. ‘Sir, we’ve got three local patrol units on site. Otara CIB has detective teams inbound, plus an Armed Offenders Squad unit.’

  Too many. Last thing he needed was a packed venue.

  ‘Cancel the CIB and the AOS.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The suspect is no longer on the premises, so cancel AOS. And tell the local units that we’ll handle everything from this end. We don’t need the backup. Keep the patrol teams on the perimeter, but pull CIB out. We don’t want anyone going in.’

  ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  Devereaux hung up. He took the stairs three at a time, was on the road a minute later. He figured Briar had maybe a seven- or eight-minute head start. He drove lights and siren. Southbound motorway traffic was light enough to weave. Long vacant stretches let him nudge the car up to one-thirty. He was down there by two thirty-five. Tired housing watched him pass, frail and desperate for attention. The Haines place was one site back from a side street that ended in a cul-de-sac. A patrol car occupied the kerb out front. Two more patrol cars and an unmarked blocked each intersection leg.

  Devereaux parked up beside the unmarked. The house was drab and run-down: grey curtains and grimed windows. Movement upstairs: uniformed officers, a suit that could have been Frank Briar. Devereaux locked the car and walked over, badged past a trio of armed officers at the kerb. The guns cued a flashback to Monday. He walked up timber stairs to the first-floor deck, came face to face with Frank Briar stepping out a ranch slider. The harsh outdoor light made him squint. He raised a forearm to shade his eyes. A clown wig of chest hair peeped t
hrough a popped shirt button. He looked genuinely disgusted.

  ‘Ah, Jesus. It’s you.’ He stopped and blocked the door. Behind him, another four uniformed patrol officers.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  Briar laughed. Overlapping radio chirrups filtered from indoors. ‘You dipshit. What does it look like? I’m responding to a call. You shouldn’t be down here. Nobody sent you.’

  ‘I know, but we can get to the bottom of that later.’

  ‘Fuck you. You don’t need to check up on me.’

  ‘Maybe I do. You’ve got four guys trooping back and forth inside before the scene examination’s even done.’

  ‘Ah, Christ.’ Briar waved him off and stepped past. He walked to the deck railing and put a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it. The patrol officers saw Devereaux standing there and filed out, heads bent like they’d heard the scorn. Devereaux went in. He caught gun smoke odour. Delicate roses of blood on the carpet. Impossible to remove without Briar noticing.

  Sorry, John.

  He walked down a short corridor. Cordite tang strengthened. More blood on the carpet. Hale must have lost more than he thought. He stepped into the bathroom. The shower curtain on the ground, the L-shaped curtain pole clinging desperately by one end. A thin drool of water beneath the tap in the bath. A spent shotgun shell lolling in a puddle at the opposite end. A wide spray of pellet scars against the enamel. A black powder coat of soot against one wall, a smear of blood beneath it. He could bleach the blood in the bath, but there was no way to get the stains in the carpet without burning the place. And Briar would have seen everything on his walk-through. If he rigged the scene now, it would be obvious what had happened.

  Shit. Hale’s blood was on file. Forensics would analyse the samples, and tie him unequivocally to the house.

  Devereaux stepped to the door. He was new to crime scene tampering. It had never crossed his mind. He didn’t like the fact he’d even paid it serious thought. Anything that seemed to fit the Don McCarthy playbook felt off. A snippet of phone call flashback: Head down there and cool this off. He’d implied he could fix things. That paradigm of greater evils again: failing a friend versus breaking the law.

  He checked out the house, front to back. The bedroom was in reasonable order. A quilt corner was peeled back from wrinkled sheets. An open dresser drawer showed a full com plement of folded clothes. He surveyed the bathroom again, saw the toothpaste residue in the sink. In the kitchen he toed the fridge open. A cool breath touched his midriff. Milk, beer. A limp piece of pizza draped across a plate, out cold.

  He walked back outside. Briar turned and looked at him, the unlit cigarette jumping as he chewed the filter. ‘Everything up to scratch?’ he said.

  ‘Have you spoken to the neighbour who made the call?’

  Briar didn’t answer right away. He said, ‘Why did you cancel the AOS callout?’

  ‘Who says it was me?’

  ‘Process of elimination. I know it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Comms said local units were responding, including AOS. I told them we didn’t need the backup.’

  ‘And who put you in charge?’

  ‘I don’t see anyone here who outranks me.’

  ‘How did you know the suspect wasn’t still armed and on site when you cancelled our armed backup?’

  ‘Same way you knew it was safe to stroll in here, I guess.’

  Briar smirked and shook his head. He folded his arms and stood by the ranch slider and looked in at the living room. His faint reflection hung just beyond the threshold.

  ‘Don’t pretend I need to get permission for anything from you, Frank. You’re not my boss.’

  Briar turned and faced him. He stepped close. The cigarette in his mouth almost bridged the gap. ‘I just find it funny you were so fucking desperate to get down here.’ He smiled. ‘I just got one of those tingly feelings you get when you sense something else is going on. You know?’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. Odeur de Frank was near caustic.

  ‘Light that cigarette before it wilts,’ Devereaux said.

  Briar gave him the finger and turned away. Devereaux went back down the stairs. He moved around the front of the house and glanced inside through a parted curtain. Darkened rooms, empty of furniture: a small lino-floored kitchen adjoining a living area. An empty light fixture hanging from electrical cord beneath a flaking plaster ceiling. He circuited the house. A shattered window on the rear side was backed by plywood.

  He walked back around the front. A patrol sergeant was stationed on the footpath.

  ‘Know of any other callouts to this address?’ Devereaux asked.

  The guy stepped off the kerb to drop his eye line. South Auckland liked its cops on the tall side. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘The location’s flagged. If there’d been anything, you would have heard about it.’

  ‘If your guys talk to the neighbours, ask whether anyone knows about the broken window around the back.’

  He gave the guy a card and walked back to his car. The interior was starting to bake. He got in and dropped his window and sat quietly and thought about things. The dash emitted a weak heat haze. Briar saw him from the deck and blew a kiss. Devereaux ignored him. He waited five minutes, and then he started the engine and drove away.

  THIRTY

  WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 2.45 P.M.

  It wasn’t Hale’s first shooting. The downside: repeat experience didn’t make things any easier.

  The injury made him feel vulnerable. He locked the front door, secured the full bolt and chain quota. His shotgun was in the bedroom, still loaded. Hale brought it through to the kitchen, propped it against the table. A sudden nauseous throb as he bent. He took a foil blister pack of pain killers and a glass from a cupboard, set them on the table with a can of Heineken from the fridge. Bloodied hands stained the frost. He cracked three tablets into the glass, tried to prise the pull-tab on the beer. Slick and shaky fingers struggled for purchase. A thumb nail gained leverage, and he tore the thing open, doused the tablets with beer. He finger-stirred the brew, downed it fast. The remaining Heineken served as a chaser. Alcohol plus pain killers: guaranteed to numb something.

  He took the shotgun with him when he walked through to the bathroom. He laid it beside the tub and ran the tap. The bloodstain was still growing, but gaining ground less rapidly. He unbuttoned the shirt and let it fall to the floor. Blood rimed his torso. It was drying the colour of rust powder, coppery stink of it thick in the small room. He kicked free of his shoes, peeled off his socks, dropped his trousers and underwear. He shut off the tap and stepped into the bath. Ankle deep: he didn’t want to faint and drown. He lowered himself gingerly. Closed eyes aimed skywards, neck corded below a taut grimace. Grip white against the tub rim.

  Blood wisps smoked and curled free as he hit the water. Delicate red strings floated from his fingertips. He cleaned the wound area. No visual inspection yet. He was dreading the potential discovery. Hospitals were obliged to report gunshot injuries, ergo bullet lodgement would necessitate self-surgery, minus Lidocaine.

  A cautious fingertip made the initial appraisal: a raw entry wound, then a swollen hump terminating at a hard, raised nodule.

  No exit wound. The pellet was still inside him.

  Douglas, you bastard.

  Hale probed delicately. It was small, maybe eight or nine mils in diameter. Maybe double- or triple-aught buckshot. It had stayed skin-deep, ripped an entry wound and torn back through soft tissue. It hadn’t gone far. It was subcutaneous. It had probably only travelled thirty mils.

  You can do this.

  He took a breath. He braced his feet against the end of the bath, turned his head sideways and pressed his cheek against the cool wall behind him. He placed an index finger behind the pellet and tried to dislodge it back the way it had arrived. The wound throbbed dully, spewed a fresh wave of red. He gasped and hunched into the pain. But the pellet didn’t move. Gooey, swollen tissue swaddled
it unyieldingly.

  You can do this.

  He waited for pain to abate. Bit of luck, the Heineken/codeine potion was just kicking in. The water was stained a uniform muddy brown. He rolled over, squeaks and groans of skin on wet laminate, raised himself knees and knuckles. Dirtied water sluiced in rivulets off his back. He limped naked to the kitchen and took needle-nose pliers from a tool drawer. He flicked the kettle on and sat and waited. A myriad of bloodied drips on the floor about him. The kettle clicked. He stood and doused the plier tips under a jug-worth of boiling water. It wasn’t ER-grade sanitation, but it would have to do. Back to the bathroom. He removed a hand towel from a stack and shook out the folds, twisted it firmly into a thick helix. Then he lowered himself back into the water. He held the twisted towel at each end and placed it across his open mouth, bit down to hold it in place. Impending anguish had his pulse racing.

  Hale raised the pliers. He tested his grip, rehearsed the open-close motion. He rolled sideways, exposing the injury. The plier nose hovered close. He spread the grips a fraction, splayed the mouth of the wound.

  Instant agony.

  He arched and kicked against the end of the tub, screamed inside the towel. The pliers fell free and splashed and clunked beside him. Hale rolled onto his back and waited for the pain to subside. The towel in his mouth had leached his tongue dry. He swallowed and coughed loose cotton strings, felt blindly for the pliers.

  Round two.

  Second time lucky.

  The cyclic throbbing slowly waned. Hale rolled onto his hip to jack the injury out of the water. The embedded pellet sat proud of the surrounding skin, eager for removal. He braced a thumb on its leeward side: a backstop against shaky hands trying to force it deeper.

  He bit down on the towel. Massive clench force induced molar aches. Quivering pliers floated close, arms spread. A subtle grip change and the wound entry was forced apart. He roared and tensed his calves against the end of the tub. But he didn’t pull back. Deeper, deeper. The pain trembled his vision, his hands. Hurricane shakes as he eased the backstop thumb forward, pushing the round back towards the plier nose.